"Thank heaven for grace!"

My husband and I have been blessed with two wonderful children. While they are truly a gift from God, I have to admit there are days when I wonder if I am even close to being the mother that God wants me to be. In fact, I highly doubt that I’m in the running for any mother of the year award. I don’t always get it right, but the older I get the more I am learning to give myself some grace.

At the beginning of this year, I set several goals for myself. Of course, a few weeks into the year all of them fell by the wayside - again. The only resolution that I have kept has been spending more time reading the bible. Starting my day by seeing what God has to say is helping me to be a better mom. I’m not perfect, it doesn’t happen every day of the week, but I’m getting better.

What have I learned so far? That I’m done checking out umpteen books on whatever parenting skill I need help with. I used to spend hours reading parenting books in the hopes of finding a magic solution to “fix” my children. My new method of operation – I’m never going to check out a parenting book again – ever. Like it says here at genea2genea, I already have the only book I need, the Bible. The more I read it, the more I realize that God has already covered it all.

So I have a new resolution (even though it’s not New Year’s). When my kids say things like “Why do I have to do that?” I’m going to try and no longer respond with “Because I said so”. Instead, I’ll flip open the Bible and find scripture that supports the reason I want them to do something. I know it’ll be in there, because every answer is in there. And since they seem to have the same complaints OVER and OVER again, I’ll have a pretty good list of scripture to quote in no time!

This is where that grace I mentioned earlier comes in again. I know it’s not going to happen overnight for me, I’m just not that good. However, I’ve got more time on my hands now to pray about it and ask for God’s help because I’m no longer reading all of those books! Just one – the Bible – He’s the only one I’m going to trust – they are after all His children, I’m just raising them for Him.